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USS Texas


MiloMorai

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On 9/11/2022 at 3:25 AM, TonyE said:

Real Mikasa, encased in concrete since the 1920s.

Here is a post-war picture btw, before restoration:

1518026134_16-1948-god.jpg

Huh, didn't know she was gutted to that degree. I knew she didn't have real guns after she was decommissioned, but didn't know turrets were gone too.

Mikasa was heavily rebuild after Russo-Japanese war as she actually suffered a magazine explosion and was partly destroyed :blink:

As for Aurora, redoing the bottom was probably necessity. Even with Texas, they had to considerably replace plating etc. and at one point, framing was so rusted that part of the hull plating buckled in.

Edited by Yama
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3 hours ago, Yama said:

Huh, didn't know she was gutted to that degree. I knew she didn't have real guns after she was decommissioned, but didn't know turrets were gone too.

Mikasa was heavily rebuild after Russo-Japanese war as she actually suffered a magazine explosion and was partly destroyed :blink:

 

Pre-war picture btw for comparison::

t15.png

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On 9/11/2022 at 1:12 PM, Mikel2 said:

How much of the Aurora is original?  Whose idea was it to cut and scuttle the lower half of the ship??

There is little left of the original Aurora as ship was badly damaged during WW2. The lower half of the ship was built according to original specifications, which is not a bad solution if original half was corroded and damaged. 

The same is said about HMS Victory. How much of the original one is left? Wood will rot and needs replacing.

Some photos of Aurora going to the dry dock:

http://alejandro-8.blogspot.com/2014/09/el-historico-crucero-aurora-dique-seco.html

Edited by alejandro_
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On 9/7/2022 at 12:29 AM, Harold Jones said:

Is there anyone left who knows how to light the boilers, let alone get her under way?

She has VTE engines and those are still used by museum ships including at least one Liberty ship. The state of her engines, that's going to make it a no go. 

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3 hours ago, alejandro_ said:

There is little left of the original Aurora as ship was badly damaged during WW2. The lower half of the ship was built according to original specifications, which is not a bad solution if original half was corroded and damaged. 

The same is said about HMS Victory. How much of the original one is left? Wood will rot and needs replacing.

Some photos of Aurora going to the dry dock:

http://alejandro-8.blogspot.com/2014/09/el-historico-crucero-aurora-dique-seco.html

 

The hull of the SS Great Britain looks like Swiss cheese.  Had they made a perfect replica and tossed away the original, it would have been a tragedy.  I hope to visit the Aurora some day, but I wish they had left it as it was, even if very deteriorated.

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Just what is going to happen to USS Texas now?  Lots of 'stuff' in the interweb but frankly it goes around and around.  Is she going to be saved or scrapped?  Removal of most of the ship makes it relatively pointless imho

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Nearly 50 years ago I had the chance to tour the USS Texas.  Back then we had the run of almost the entire ship.  Though the turrets and magazines were off limits we were able to inspect the boiler and engine rooms.  The size of those steam pistons impressed this then 15 year old, they remain my most lasting memory of the Texas.

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On 9/13/2022 at 9:49 AM, alejandro_ said:

There is little left of the original Aurora as ship was badly damaged during WW2. The lower half of the ship was built according to original specifications, which is not a bad solution if original half was corroded and damaged. 

The same is said about HMS Victory. How much of the original one is left? Wood will rot and needs replacing.

Some photos of Aurora going to the dry dock:

http://alejandro-8.blogspot.com/2014/09/el-historico-crucero-aurora-dique-seco.html

A surprisingly large amount, of the 1814 HMS Victory anyway. When she came back from Trafalgar she was shot to bits, and needed an extensive refit to make her seaworthy. Most of the Trafalgar Victory disappeared then.

However there are at least 2 decks, including the one Nelson died on, that are from Trafalgar, never been relaid. So is the keel, minus a chunk that was lost from a close encounter with a German bomb in the Portsmouth Blitz. And of course, most remarkably, some of her sail's still survive, still shot through with French roundshot.

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On 9/13/2022 at 12:58 PM, Mikel2 said:

 

The hull of the SS Great Britain looks like Swiss cheese.  Had they made a perfect replica and tossed away the original, it would have been a tragedy.  I hope to visit the Aurora some day, but I wish they had left it as it was, even if very deteriorated.

Indeed. To the point where they realised with the rate of decomposition, they were going to lose her. So in her dry dock, they put in a glass layer to create an impression of water (surprisingly successful) at her waterline, and put in an airtight seal, and keep her lower half sitting in the equivalent of Arizona maintained by dehumidifiers. Its not cheap (new technology has made it cheaper) but it seems to work.

Im not sure its going to be viable to scale that up to the size of a battleship, but it would be an interesting though experiment to see what the costs would be. Probably cheaper than taking her into the body and fender shop every few decades perhaps.

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  • 3 weeks later...
5 hours ago, Mike1158 said:

They are talking of removing the torpedo bulges, how much of a ship do they remove before it ceases to be that ship?

 

To be which ship?  The torpedo bulges were not part of the original design, they were added during the 1920s.

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7 hours ago, Steven P Allen said:

I can only imagine the amount of money and work necessary to restore her to her original fit, but the result would be stunning!

When he said the budget was $35M and that the budgeted money included patching her, raising her, clearing the mud from her and then towing her to Galveston I was left wondering how much money would be left for restoration.

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On 10/3/2022 at 2:01 AM, DKTanker said:

To be which ship?  The torpedo bulges were not part of the original design, they were added during the 1920s.

A good point I had failed to consider, mea culpa.  Thanks for setting me straight.

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  • 1 month later...

It is in Galveston and they are working hard on her.  She might not being going back to San Jacinto, but to another port.  I watched her whole trip from San Jacinto to Galveston on Youtube, it was great.  I just wish I could have been part of the Sheriff's Office escort flotilla.

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